censorship ![](/web/20230621220609im_/http://hnn.us/images/icon/rss.png)
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SOURCE: PEN America
6/13/2023
PEN Condemns Censorship in Removal of Coates's Memoir from AP Course
Several students reported their teacher using terms that mirrored the language of the state law—claiming the lesson "made them ashamed to be Caucasian"—resulting in the school board's decision to remove the book from an Advanced Placement Language course.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
6/9/2023
Arkansas Libraries and Booksellers Sue over State Book Restrictions
The vagueness of provisions in the new law about "making available" material "harmful" to minors makes librarians and sellers afraid that even with separate children's sections they would face criminal liability for selling books to adults.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
5/23/2023
Most Book Bans Driven by Tiny Minority of Activists; LGBTQ Themes Central to Objections
Individuals who filed 10 or more challenges to books were responsible for two thirds of all complaints about books, suggesting a small group of political activists is driving the phenomenon.
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SOURCE: New York Times
5/20/2023
Historian Don Yacovone: Florida's Restrictions Echo the Demands to Teach Pro-Slavery Argument
Jamelle Bouie's newsletter puts the current Florida controversy in light of a previous era's political demands about the teaching of history to justify one group's domination of another.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
5/22/2023
Dept. of Ed Charges Georgia Book Removal May Violate Civil Rights
A review by the department's civil rights unit concludes that Forsyth County, Georgia may have created a hostile learning environment for Black and LGBTQ students through its book removal policies.
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SOURCE: The Hill
5/22/2023
CA's Newsom Demands Info on Florida Textbook Revisions
“You don’t get to rewrite history in a back room. You don’t get to erase basic facts around segregation, the holocaust, or Rosa Parks’ story. The extremists in Florida and textbook companies that are colluding with them are about to be exposed.”
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5/21/2023
Texas Judge Revives Anthony Comstock's Crusade Against Reproductive Freedom
by Bill Greer
The career of Anthony Comstock shows what can happen when a highly committed moral crusader gains traction in the political system. His rehabilitation in the contemporary abortion war is cause for concern.
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
5/15/2023
Meet the Other Grassroots Moms Movement—The One Fighting For the Freedom to Read
Jen Cousins of the Florida Freedom to Read Project won't let the right claim the political mantle of "parents' rights" in increasingly contentious education politics.
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SOURCE: NAACP LDF
5/18/2023
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Opposes Texas Legislation
"Truthful and inclusive discussions about United States and Texas history and their connection to present-day inequalities are essential to accurate and quality academic instruction."
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
5/18/2023
The Fight for the Soul of a Missouri School Board
by Sue Halpern
Even in a conservative community in southwestern Missouri, a grassroots group of parents and students has rallied to oppose right-wing efforts to restrict books available in the local public schools.
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
5/10/2023
DeSantis Signs Bill Giving Legislature Oversight of Invited Campus Speakers
The concept of an oversight office to guarantee "intellectual diversity" has a long lineage on the right. Florida is the first state to require campuses to create those offices and require compliance and oversight.
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SOURCE: Insider
5/10/2023
The US Government Hired Dorothea Lange to Document the Japanese Internment, then Censored Her Photos
The War Relocation Authority hired Lange and Ansel Adams, hoping to polish the public image of internment. Lange's photos, which revealed the harsh conditions of camps and the human tragedy of removal from homes and neighborhoods, were shelved.
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SOURCE: New York Times
5/6/2023
Pushed to Soften Discussion of Racism, Author Pulls out of Scholastic Deal
Maggie Tokuda-Hall wrote the story of her grandparents meeting in a WWII-era internment camp, but it wasn't a commercial success. When Scholastic offered to license the work for classrooms, they asked for the unacceptable: downplaying the severity of anti-Japanese racism.
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SOURCE: PEN America
5/1/2023
Academic Freedom Battleground Shifts from Classroom to Institutions
by Jeffrey Sachs, Jeremy C. Young and Jonathan Friedman
Conservative leaders like Adam Kissel are advising lawmakers to defeat First Amendment protections for what professors say in the classroom by shifting legislation's focus to defining concepts as outside the bounds of academic disciplines and academic fields as outside the bounds of the university's mission.
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SOURCE: Business Insider
4/16/2023
Will Louisiana Ban Study of Racism Outright?
Republican state officials in a party resolution appear to hold the position that "inglorious aspects" of American history are too divisive to be discussed in state institutions of highe education.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
4/5/2023
Fighting Book Bans—and Winning
by Alyssa Rosenberg
Although book-banners have the attention of the media and are being used by politicians to create wedge issues, it's important to remember that the policy is unpopular, and can be resisted.
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3/19/2023
Censoring History Education Goes Hand in Hand with Democratic Backsliding
by Julia Boechat Machado and Ruben Zeeman
Regimes in the Philippines, India and Brazil have recently tried to censor the teaching of history in service of their poltical goals and claims to power. The pushback by scholars in these countries should inspire historians in Florida and elsewhere to resist the political censorship of research and teaching.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
3/16/2023
Meet Some Librarians Fighting Back
Librarian Mary Grahame Hunter says libraries are places where children's rights and intellectual autonomy are respected. Some in her Michigan community are working to change that.
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SOURCE: FIRE
3/7/2023
Why NYT v. Sullivan Matters More than Ever
Conservative politicians want to use libel laws to intimidate critics. One Supreme Court case stands in their way.
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SOURCE: The Hill
3/3/2023
At its 150th Anniversary, the Comstock Law is Relevant Again
by Jonathan Friedman and Amy Werbel
Anthony Comstock drew on elite connections to give himself near unilateral power to confiscate "obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, or immoral" materials —terms he was free to define on his own—and prosecute people for possessing them. Right-wing politicians seem to be inspired by the example.
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